The Moon and the Sun

21

Sherzad sang.

The sea woman’s images spun around Marie-Josèphe, a waterspout of mirages. Sea people sunbathed on a small sandy island. The sea stretched around it without interruption. The sea people, safe and happy, played with their family’s new child. The baby’s hand had begun to grow its webs, her toenails to thicken and withdraw into claws. Her hair was as soft as spume. She hummed and babbled, creating large amorphous pictures. Her mama, her sisters and brothers and cousins, her aunts and uncles, exclaimed with wonder and approval.

“On our birth islands, we are vulnerable, but we believed ourselves safe.”

Marie-Josèphe interpreted as well as she could, from a language with no words. She sketched rapidly as she spoke. The charcoal scribbles did no justice to the beauty of Sherzad’s songs, but they documented the story. Servants took the finished sketches, displayed them, pinned them up.

“We were not safe.”

A galleon appeared on the horizon. A cross blazed from its flag. Sherzad’s song broke into discord. The galleon’s cannons thrust through its gunports.

“The ships of the men of land sought us.”

The galleon came about, presenting its broadside to the tiny birth island. The cannons fired in a horrible rolling roar. Sherzad screamed in grief and pain. Men stormed the island with pikes and nets.

“They called us devils. They killed and captured us, for the glory of your god.”

Lucien heard again the sound of battle in the sea woman’s songs. He heard the screams of dying men and horses. Exhilaration took him like strong wine; despair overcame it. Sherzad’s song brought back Steenkirk, and Neerwinden.

“They took us to the mainland, to cities, they imprisoned us and tortured us, they killed us slowly.”

In Marie-Josèphe’s sketch, an Inquisitor shattered a man of the sea on the rack. In the background, a human figure burned at the stake.

Lucien heard again the catcalls of his youth, the other pages at court tormenting him: Dwarf, dwarf! Your papa is a devil and your mama is a witch!

They never stopped, until he earned the King’s esteem.

“The men of land went truly mad. They killed us, they killed their own people.”

The Church sought evidence of fornication between women and the sea demons. What it sought, it found. It condemned any woman with a dwarf child, for the child was pure proof of congress with the devil.

“The sea people knew the men of land as enemies.”

Marie-Josèphe stared in horror at her sketch: a woman broken on the wheel and thrown into the sea, her dwarf child holding tight, sinking with her, drowning. The servant took the drawing away before she could stop him.

The servant displayed the illustration. While the rest of the audience was still applauding the pathos of Marie-Josèphe’s story, the servant reached Lucien. He tried to hurry past, but Lucien caught his wrist, made him stop, and took the sketch from him.

Lucien thought: Not long since, that woman could have been my mother. That child would have been me.

The sea monster left off its singing.

“That is all.” Marie-Josèphe’s voice shook. She turned to the sea woman. “How could you?”

The sea monster shrieked, splashed backwards, and flung water everywhere. She laughed maniacally, laughed as no beast could laugh. If Lucien had doubted Marie-Josèphe de la Croix before, now he believed everything she had ever claimed about the being, and more.

At the edge of anger, Lucien rose and left the tent. He did not care to lose his temper in public.

Lucien sat by the Reflecting Pool. If he plunged into the water he might cool his fury.

If I plunge into the water, he said to himself, I might also drown. I prefer to remain angry.

“Count Lucien!” Mlle de la Croix ran toward him, pale with dismay. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—how could Sherzad be so cruel?”

“Have the courage to claim your own revenge.”

“My revenge? For what?”

“You offered, and I declined.”

“And I’m acting the rejected flirt? Sir, you wrong me.”

Lucien’s anger erupted. “What do you expect from a dwarf, ugly, misshapen—”

“Count Lucien, I love you.”

“That is your misfortune.”

“Your spirit is beautiful. You allowed me to see your kindness, and…” She hesitated. “Do you understand what I said? I love you.”

“Many women love me. I’m a generous man, and a knowledgeable lover.”

“You are arrogant, sir.”

“I have told you that I am. I have reason to be. I possess a title of the sword, the title of the companions of Charlemagne, a title already ancient when these upstart dukes and marquises were created. I enjoy the trust of the King. I’m heir to vast lands and great wealth—”

“I don’t care about that!” Marie-Josèphe said. “If you weren’t Lucien de Barenton, Count de Chrétien, I’d feel the same.”

“Ah. If I were a starving peasant, beaten because I couldn’t pay my taxes, my hovel pillaged by the soldiers of my own King—you’d love me?”

“You’re an atheist, and I love you.”

Lucien’s sense of the ridiculous evaporated his anger. He laughed. When he regained control of himself, he said, “Mlle de la Croix, if I were a peasant, I’d have been sold to gypsies in my cradle… or drowned, like the child in Sherzad’s story.”

“Surely, no, not now. Not you.”

“Mlle de la Croix, you want a husband.”

“Yes, Count Lucien,” she said softly.

“I’ll never marry. I’ll never bring a child into this life.”

“But your life is wonderful. The King loves you, everyone respects you—”

“Pain torments me,” he said, telling her what he never admitted to anyone, except a lover.

“Every life bears pain.”

“You have no idea what you’re saying,” he said, irritated by her ignorant assurance. “I am in pain every moment of my existence. Except when I love a woman—” He hesitated, then began again. “When I love a woman, especially if I loved a woman, how could I pass my affliction to her children? You want a husband, you want children. I will never marry, and I will never father a child.”

“God gives us little choice in that matter,” she said. “If we choose love.”

He laughed at her. “No god has anything to do with it. Even the most unimaginative lover can trouble to wrap his member in a baudruche. We have one way to make a child, a thousand ways to love.” He said again, “I will never marry,”

“Why are you saying this to me?” she cried. “Why not say, I have no affection for you, I cannot return your love?”

“Because I promised to tell you the truth, if I knew it.”

She fell silent with hope and confusion.

“Do you still want me?” Lucien asked. “As your lover?”

“I… It isn’t right, Count Lucien, I can’t—” She blushed and stammered; she spread her hands in supplication. “The Church says—My brother wouldn’t—”

“I’m perfectly indifferent to the wishes of the church or to the demands of your brother. What do you want?”

She answered his question, if obscurely. “If you marry, your children might be—they might not—”

“My father is a dwarf. He retired, crippled—”

His father had ridden beside Louis XIII; valiant, renowned, he had ridden in the service of the child-King Louis XIV during the civil war.

Lucien’s father no longer rode.

“I am my father’s image,” Lucien said.

“Rumor says—”

“Rumor lies.”

“Many people believe it.”

“Louis has enough misshapen children without counting me among his brood. Besides, he acknowledges his bastards.”

She sank down before him and grasped his hands.

“I didn’t make up Sherzad’s story, I didn’t conspire with her to hurt you. I heard the story as you did, as she sang it. If I’d known what she planned, I would have made up a story. I’d never willingly cause you pain. I beg you, please believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said gently. “But I can’t give you what you wish for. If you love me, I’ll break your heart. If you defy His Majesty for the sea woman’s sake, the King will break your heart. Or worse.”

“But Sherzad is human. As human as you or I.”

“Yes,” Lucien said. “Yes, I believe it. Only a human could be so cruel.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“Not cruel to me,” he said. “Cruel to you.”

Footsteps drew Yves from his fugue, the footsteps and the fear they struck in him. Few members of the court of Versailles visited the chapel unless His Majesty was in attendance. Yves could not face His Majesty. He raised himself on his elbow, stiff from the chill of the marble.

“There you are.” Marie-Josèphe’s voice chilled him.

Yves noticed what he should have seen long before: her exhaustion, her despair, her love for him, her disappointment.

“I was worried.” She sat on the confessional bench. “Forgive me.”

He opened his mouth to reply, to chastise her—

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Yves climbed to his feet. “It isn’t proper for you—for me—”

“You promised to hear confession. You promised His Holiness.”

She folded her hands in her lap and sat with preternatural stillness. As a child, she could sit in the woods till she became invisible to the birds and the creatures. She would never move until he overcame his terror and heard her confession.

He sat beside her. He stared at his hands. “How did you sin, my child?”

“I lied to my King.”

“That never bothered you before!” he exclaimed.

“About the sea woman.”

If she had made up everything about the sea monster, then how could she also know—But it did not matter.

“I thank God that you’ve repented,” he said, relieved. “Go, and sin—”

“I’m not finished!” Marie-Josèphe said. She looked straight at him. “No sailor took Sherzad’s token! You know it, but you said nothing. She said, The dark man took it. The dark man, the man in black robes.” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “The man who is my brother.”

“You saw the ring—you guessed—”

“I’ve never seen it. You took it while she fainted, after you forced seaweed and dead fish down her throat—”

“It did speak to you…” Yves whispered.

“I couldn’t say to the King, My brother is a common thief. So I lied! I lied, and my lie may kill Sherzad!”

Yves pulled the ruby ring, the gold ring with the shiny stone, from his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

He fled the chapel.

He flew down the hill to the Fountain, leaving Marie-Josèphe struggling to keep up. He pushed his way through the visitors, flung open the cage door, and ran down the stairs. His breath tore his throat.

Oblivious to the spectators, Yves stepped off the platform. The water rose up around him, soaking his cassock. He waded toward Apollo.

“Sea woman! Sherzad!”

The sea woman surfaced beneath Triton. She spat at Yves and snarled.

“Forgive me, I didn’t know, I didn’t understand—I didn’t believe…”

The sea woman watched him, submerged but for the top of her head and her eyes.

Marie-Josèphe hurried to the Fountain. Yves turned to her.

“Tell her—I thought nothing of taking her ring. I thought, how strange to find rubies tangled in an animal’s hair…”

“Tell her yourself,” Marie-Josèphe said, out of breath. “But you frighten her, so be gentle.”

“I captured you,” Yves said. “I allowed your friend to die, and now I’ve sentenced you to death as well. I didn’t understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’m sorry, for the love of God, please forgive me.” He held out the ring, offering it to her.

Sherzad swam slowly closer, keening.

Outside the tent, draft horses stamped impatiently, jingling their harness. Their driver waited for his cargo, to take it to the sea.

Marie-Josèphe sat on the rim of the Fountain of Apollo, holding Sherzad’s hand, stroking her coarse dark hair. The sea woman lay on the steps, bracing herself on the stone rim; she leaned against Marie-Josèphe, dripping fetid water, her naked body warming Marie-Josèphe’s side. She pressed her cheek into Marie-Josèphe’s palm, wetting it with her tears. Marie-Josèphe held her close, wishing she could comfort her. The song of Sherzad’s mourning pierced her skin like tiny knives.

Yves spread a silk handkerchief over the man of the sea’s ruined face, and wrapped the canvas shroud around him. With his own hands he helped three servants lift Sherzad’s friend. They placed him in the coffin. Yves folded the canvas around him. The servants carried the coffin to the cage, so Sherzad could look on her friend one final time.

The sea woman fell silent. Though she would not touch her friend with her voice, she placed her webbed hand onto his chest. Her fingers trembled.

“He received no last rites,” Yves said. “I was with him, but I gave him no last rites…”

“Never mind,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sea people aren’t Christians. They have no god.”

“I could have saved him,” Yves said. “If I’d known… I will save Sherzad, I’ll save her people.”

“Give Sherzad her ring.”

Sherzad plucked the ring from Yves’ palm with extended claws.

“I will bury your friend at sea,” Yves said. “I promise it.”

Sherzad whispered, I want to go, I want to acknowledge his death and contemplate my life.

Yves shook his head.

“Dear Sherzad,” Marie-Josèphe said, “I’m so sorry, it isn’t possible.” Sherzad’s grief made Marie-Josèphe want to weep, but how could she indulge her own sorrow in the face of the sea woman’s loss?

Sherzad freed one of her friend’s last straggled locks from beneath the kerchief; she knotted the ring into his hair.

She bent over the coffin, her long hair shadowing her face. Marie-Josèphe put her arm around Sherzad’s shoulders, but the sea woman shrugged her off, slid down the stairs, and submerged without a sound.

“Was he her husband, whom I allowed to die?”

“Her friend, her lover, not her husband,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sea folk don’t marry, they make love for pleasure, and on Midsummer Day they mate—”

“I know it! I predicted it, I found it, I saw it—I should have known no mere beasts could behave with such depravity. Perhaps they’re demons, after all—”

“The Church says they aren’t. And isn’t the Church infallible?”

Yves flinched at the anger and sarcasm in her voice.

Yves helped the servants move the coffin back to its supports. They fitted its lid. Yves set the nails himself. He helped them carry the coffin to the freight-wagon, gave the driver a gold coin, and sent the wagon off on the road to Le Havre.

At the sea woman’s tent, Lucien asked Zelis to bow; he dismounted carefully. Pain edged his spine, creeping up on him like a tiger as the day went on. He regretted Juliette’s departure desperately, but he could not ask her to return.

You’re a fool, he said to himself, to be so respectful of Mlle de la Croix’ scruples.

He was far too proud to entice her into his bed—even if she were of a mind to be enticed—with promises he would not keep: promises of marriage, assurances of saving the sea woman’s life. If Marie-Josèphe did not want him for friendship, for love, for the pleasure they could give each other, he did not want her either.

But he would not delude himself; he liked her, he enjoyed talking with her, he sympathized with her dilemma.

He entered the tent, glad to have good news to give her.

“Hello, Count Lucien.” Marie-Josèphe turned her gaze away from a faint ripple that marked the course of the sea woman. She smiled at him, sadly, shyly. She showed him her arm. “Your salve did its work. Thank you.”

He took her hand, for no other reason than to touch her. Monsieur’s lotions had softened her work-roughened hands—the lotions, and her release from scrubbing the stone floors of a convent—but ink stained her fingers.

“I’m happy to see you recovered.” The heat that touched his face had nothing to do with Mlle de la Croix, only with the wine.

“Are you well? You seem a little…”

Lucien chuckled.

Mlle de la Croix blushed as furiously as when they first had met, when she thought she caused him offense with everything she said.

“Never mind,” she said, “it’s none of my business why you’re drunk this early in the evening.”

“I’m drunk this early in the evening, Mlle de la Croix, because I’m not making love this early in the evening.”

Is she more perceptive than the rest of His Majesty’s court, he wondered, who never notice when I dull the ache in my back with wine instead of ecstasy? Or is she the only person brave or ignorant enough to comment?

She glanced away; she only thought she had embarrassed him, while he had certainly embarrassed her. He regretted it, and his sense of humor failed him.

A curl of her hair slipped over her shoulder, caressing her. He almost touched the lock of hair; if she had been any other woman at court, and he had been moved to touch her hair, he would have done so, and things might have progressed from there. But Marie-Josèphe had made her wishes known already. Lucien reined himself in more violently than he would ever check one of his horses.

“Do you not think,” Marie-Josèphe said, still looking across the Fountain, “you would serve yourself better if you embraced your suffering? Do you not think your suffering would benefit your spiritual health?”

“I do not,” Lucien said. “I avoid suffering whenever possible and with whatever means come to hand.”

“The Church exalts suffering.”

“Did scrubbing floors in silent unhappiness do you any good? Does this prison elevate your friend Sherzad? Suffering only makes one miserable.”

“I can’t argue with you about my religion, sir. You’ll draw me into danger, for you’re much cleverer than I.”

“I never argue about religion, Mlle de la Croix, but I may, on occasion, make a statement of common sense.”

She made no reply. Her shoulders slumped with weariness and despair. No dry witticism could ease her fear, but his news might give her a moment’s respite.

“His Majesty requests—” he said.

“M. de Chrétien!” Marie-Josèphe’s brother strode into the tent. “I have something for you to do.”

“Yves, don’t interrupt Count Lucien.”

“What is it, Father de la Croix?” Lucien spoke courteously, though he did not much like the form of the request. No one commanded him, except the King.

Yves explained, and made his request. “The coffin is on the way to Le Havre. Can you have it sent to sea? Sent to sea and buried there?”

Lucien’s voice grew chill. “You have taken it upon yourself to dispose of His Majesty’s sea monster.”

“To give the man of the sea a decent burial. His Majesty wouldn’t deny—”

“Count Lucien, you believe the sea people are—”

Brother’s and sister’s protests collided.

“Why will you not understand this?” Lucien said, doubly provoked. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. His Majesty has not ruled the sea monsters to be men.”

“I promised Sherzad’s friend a sea burial,” Yves said.

“You had no right to make such a promise.” Lucien, furious, never raised his voice. “You certainly have no right to tell me to carry it out.”

Yves shook his head, confused. “But, M. de Chrétien, you told me, whatever I needed—”

“To satisfy His Majesty’s will!” Lucien exclaimed. “Not your own.”

“His Majesty cares nothing for the dead creature,” Yves said. “Only what I can discover about—”

Lucien raised his hand sharply; Yves fell silent.

“Mlle de la Croix,” he said, “you yourself begged His Majesty to study the sea monster’s skull. His Majesty has condescended to do so.”

Marie-Josèphe made a sound of despair, and buried her face in her hands.

“The wagon’s only an hour gone,” Yves said. “We can fetch it back.”

“His Majesty wishes to inspect the skull now.”

“I’ve put you in a terrible position,” Marie-Josèphe said. “I beg your pardon—will you forgive me?”

“My forgiveness cannot solve this dilemma,” Lucien said.

“Tell the King,” Yves said, “that I must prepare the skull, so it will not offend—”

“Do you suggest that I lie to His Majesty?” Lucien blew out his breath in exasperation. “I regret, Father de la Croix, Mlle de la Croix, that I cannot consider such a thing.”